


Shelter

by Summerlightning



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Growing Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:55:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Summerlightning/pseuds/Summerlightning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She shows him the city:  the places the tribe likes to sit and tell stories.  The homes, the cookfires, the nests and sleeping hammocks—the stretches of water lit up by glowpearls, effervescent lime and shimmery blue-gold.  “Here swim.  Here catch food,” Susan tells him.</p>
<p>Or:  Jake moves out, and Finn moves on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter

\--

The sun burns bright, bright overhead and the sky is blue and cloudless, but Finn lowers himself down the ladder and pulls the lid at its top back into place.  Blackness boils over him.  Feeling with his feet for the rungs below, he shimmies into the sewer’s _thwip-drip_ symphony.  At the ladder’s base he lights a lantern, scavenges an old pool floaty-ring, and wades shivering but stalwart into the water.

When he drifts up against the docks of the Hyooman city an hour later, the natives greet him happily—none so much as Susan, though.  She scoops him sodden from the float and squeezes him, nuzzling him into her neck, smooshing their cheeks together.

“Finn!  Finn!”  She shrieks his name again and again:  tosses him high, catches him, spins him around.  He drops the lantern into the water:  the feeble flame inside goes out with a _ksssh_ but that’s okay, the city’s got light aplenty, flickering luminous over the limestone walls.  “Finn back!  Finn!  _Finn_!”

“Hi Susan!”  Finn gives her his most ginormous hug and it’s still not enough to fit around her bicep.  She doesn’t seem to mind.

\--

She shows him the city:  the places the tribe likes to sit and tell stories.  The homes, the cookfires, the nests and sleeping hammocks—the stretches of water lit up by glowpearls, effervescent lime and shimmery blue-gold.  “Here swim.  Here catch food,” Susan tells him.

“Catch with what?”

From a set of hooks chiseled into the cavern wall she takes up a pronged trident, meticulously carved, wickedly sharp:  makes a jabbing motion.  “Stabby-poke.”

“That is _awesome_ , dude.  Can you teach me?”

She beams.  Pressing the trident into his hands, she nods and says, “I teach.”

\--

The fish is white and feathery inside, steaming hot, tongue-burny but good.  The Hyoomans huddle around the fire and take great bites of it, laughing, hooting, burbling.  They praise him, gills aflutter.  Susan tucks Finn into her arm and smacks into his ear as she chews.  She is warm and her heartbeat goes _brmm-bappa-brmm-bappa-brmm_ against his ribs, and he thinks of Jake busy with Lady and the puppies, thinks of Marceline gone off on some band-music jaunt and Peebs visiting a distant dignitary—he thinks of this and huddles closer.

Gradually the tribe slips away, in pairs, in groups.  The fire dwindles.  At last it’s just the two of them left behind and Susan nibbles drowsily at Finn’s temple, half-awake and smiling.

“Hey Susan?” Finn whispers.

“Uh?”  She blinks at him, glitter-green.

“Do you remember what you said when I was here last time?  Right before I left?”

In the shadows her face screws up.  There’s a scale on her nose from dinner.  Like a tiny coin it winks and shines.  “Yes.  Finn stay,” she says.  She looks at him—leans down, mouth open.  Realizing.  “Finn!  Finn stay?”

He thinks of Jake and Lady and the puppies:  of Marceline, of Peebs.  Gone, all gone, all busy, the treehouse so empty and creaky-quiet and lonely—

His eyes burn.  Susan sees and holds his face in her hands, rubbing her thumbs over his cheeks ’til they’re dry again.

“Finn,” she croons, wounded.  “Oh.  Finn.”

He asks, “Can I?”


End file.
